


Purgatory Revisited

by Youngbloodrage



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Not really though, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Religion, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 07:49:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2016864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Youngbloodrage/pseuds/Youngbloodrage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve returns home for the first time in a long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purgatory Revisited

It was in Chicago that a man of God first tried to talk to him. He wasn’t the last, but when your best friend needs stitches and everything you eat tastes like mud, you don’t exactly lend an ear to the man rambling about Christ.

But Steve, out of a mix of boredom and decency, listened to the chaplain in Chicago. He sat for an hour, listening about how his soul could be saved, how the man knew Steve was a good person, how death didn’t have to be the end.

Steve listened, but all he could think about was how Bucky hadn’t written in weeks. He had no idea where he was. A small part of him, a part he hated, thought he could be dead. That was what prompted him to open his mouth and ask it, fear spite in his voice. “What happens to good men who die? The ones who don’t believe in God?”  
“Purgatory,” The man replied, clearly not sensing the motive behind Steve’s question. “They pay forever for not believing, but they don’t suffer as they would in Hell. I describe to children as a very hot bath, washing you of your sin.”

Well jump forward a couple of months and Steve would’ve given just about anything for a hot bath, even if it was meant to make him suffer. He just wanted to wash himself of all that had happen. God, he just want to be warm again, even if it meant burning.

 

He hasn’t been home in so long. He has been absent, not only in time but in space. The distance that separated him and brooklyn added lifetimes onto his life sentence of missing it.

And returning to it, it was everything. It was fantastic and heartbreaking and comforting and bitter. As he walked the streets he knew as well as he used know the map of veins running up and down his pale arms as a child, he couldn’t shake the feeling of burning that lingered still in his gut.

For coming home was far from paradise. Because he came back looking for someone that was impossible to find. And though Sam was beside him, he came back alone.

Passing the alley ways that he was beat up in was in no was as painful as passing by the parks that he was held tight. He had said it was to keep Steve warm, but the soft meeting of lips under flickering streetlights betrayed those words.

He had also told Steve that he would never leave him in the cold, never let him die from what would have killed him so easily.

But now Steve was alone, and it was no longer the cold that was going to kill him. It was the burning of an in between. It was the ache of coming so close to your heaven, only to lose him.


End file.
